Articles

Why spend a lot of effort and time selecting a herd sire? When you consider that after successfully settling a female there is approximately 365 days gestation and 730 days to prove out the cria you are looking at over a three year investment. When

Parasite treatment evolved to create two distinct management methods. Initially, treatment with products such as Fenbenzodol and/or Avermectin every six months as the prescribed treatment was standard practice. This is called the Prophylactic Method

We have seen many articles, posts, and opinions on selection and making breeding decisions but few to follow up or record the success or failure of the breeding selection. Offspring that receive continuous banners in the show ring could be viewed as

Have you ever stopped to think about how things might be different if you never existed? What would be different? What effect has your life had on this world and the people around you? Sure...obviously your family would be totally different, but I am

In 1984 the first focused imports of alpaca arrived into the United States from Chili. Over the course of 14 years various imports arrived from Bolivia and Peru as well culminating in the Alpaca Registry closed in 1998 to additional imports to lock

When quality females are offered as “production” or “foundation” this seems to trigger a Typhoid Mary response. What no banners? Selecting alpacas from show winners relies only on phenotype. You may say –no- they also have great pedigree! If your

Gregor Johann Mendel discovered and refined the theory of inheritance in 1865 and did not become the core of inheritance theory until included in Thomas Hunt Morgan’s Chromosome Theory of Inheritance 1915. Mendel’s discovery predicted trait expressi

Cria Ricochet brings to mind Newton’s First Law of Motion: A thing in motion remains in motion until an equal or opposite force is applied, thus changing direction but the velocity remains constant. In this case the thing in motion is a cria who aft

When we refer to fleece improvement we are not referring to a single alpaca or a single year improvement but are referring to consistent year after year improvement across multiple alpacas. Our observations regarding a single alpaca or a single year

Prior to this discussion getting fully underway we need to realize that there are many types of mites, four of which are most prevalent and each carrying there own level of severity of condition and treatment. Please understand, I am not an Acarolog

The Wisconsin farm started seeing strange terms such as cria, hembra, macho when referring to livestock. Add in a few others like Huacaya and Suri and you start to wonder are you on a Wisconsin Farm or a South American Estancia.The rural landscape i

Questioning ones membership in an organization is what provides challenge and quality to an organization but when that question draws the conclusion the organization no longer is beneficial to me and I no longer need to support it through membership

Peruvian, Chilean, and Bolivian is touted as a difference in quality and I find this hard to believe and offer my reasons why. Peruvian, Chilean, and Bolivian refer to Port of Export. Port of Export is the exit point of an alpaca from South America

When we accept the premise that line breeding is defined as the mating of alpacas with common ancestry then we have also defined inbreeding. The difference appears to be in perception. Inbreeding, especially relating to human mating refers to singl

Good fence makes good neighbors. This defines fence that is best for alpacas considering that most livestock are injured by attacks from outside the fenced enclosure. Other than an amorous male, alpacas do not challenge the fence. These two facts

We need to agree on what prepotency is before we can entertain it as the single best tool to select an alpaca. Prepotency is an alpacas’ ability to pass on heritable phenotypic traits that it possesses without regard to environment or selected mate.

We sheared our prize alpaca – prized because he received red and blue ribbons in every halter class he entered and because the judges all agreed, “you have a good one there.” The fleece, the reflection of this alpaca, was an extension of the halter